He reaches over and takes my hand. He lifts it to his mouth and kisses the back of it. “Can you forgive me for disappearing for a couple of days?”
“You could have told me that you needed so
me time.”
He shakes his head. “I didn’t need time. I will never need time. So if I’d asked for time, it would have been a lie, and I don’t plan to ever lie to you, Evie.”
We pull into my driveway, get out of the Jeep, and he catches me around the waist, hoists me over his shoulder, and walks with me toward the house. “Haven’t you carried me around enough tonight?” I call out. But really, I don’t mind. I have an excellent view of his butt.
“I’m afraid you’ll try to get away,” he calls out as he jumps to bump me a little higher onto his shoulder.
“Grady Parker, if you think I’m going to try to get away, you don’t know me at all.” I laugh as he slaps my butt, and I return the favor as we enter the house. The cats scatter when we walk into the bedroom, where he tosses me onto the bed.
I hold out my arms to him, but he shakes his head at me. “We’re not getting into that bed until we’ve had a shower,” he warns with a pointed finger, mocking how I treated him in the hotel room we’d shared in Florida. “So you have two options. Option one: You have five minutes to yourself to shower while I wait to go next. Or option two: We save time and conserve water by showering together.”
I roll to get off the bed and stand up. I hold up two fingers. “I choose option two.” He jumps toward me and I turn to flee into the bathroom. He chases me, laughing, all the way to the shower.
34
Evie
Grady jerks his shirt over his head, while I shrug out of my flannel shirt. I laugh as he bounces from foot to foot, stepping out of his jeans.
“What are you laughing at?” he asks as he lifts his face to look at me, but that teasing glint I love so much is there.
“You.” I laugh as I shove my jeans and panties down in one motion. “You’re like a newborn colt with your clumsiness.” I laugh and the sound of it almost startles me. The sound of my own joy.
Grady stares at me. “I love it when you sound happy.”
For all the shit I give Grady, one thing is definitely true: he makes me so happy that I can barely stand it. I spin around and lift my hair. “Unhook me,” I say.
He unhooks my bra and I shrug out of it, then I bend down and tug off my socks. Grady toes his off at the same time.
Grady snakes a warm arm around my naked waist, drawing me close to him. “You got any more demands, Clifford?” he asks as he kisses the side of my neck. His lips are warm and firm, and he nips my earlobe gently, which makes me let out a little mewl of pleasure. “Anything else I can help you take off?” He looks down at my body.
“I’m naked, Grady,” I whisper fiercely. “In case you didn’t notice.”
He spins me around, slaps my ass, and says, “If you ever stop trying to bust my balls, I’ll be disappointed in you.” He reaches past me to turn on the water. Then he spins me back around and presses his palm against my chest, and I step back under the spray. I grab a small patch of his chest hair and use it to pull him in with me. “God, I love you,” he says as he disentangles my fingers and pushes me back against the wall of the shower.
He reaches beyond me and grabs the soap. But he doesn’t use it on himself. Instead, he soaps up his hands, sets it down, and then applies those hands to my body. He goes straight for my breasts, not wasting a moment of time. He skims delicately under and above my boobs, tracing small circles with his soap-slick hands.
I lean the back of my head against the shower wall behind me and my eyes fall shut. My nipples harden, but he doesn’t touch them. Instead, he skims my nipples in tiny circles until they are absolutely aching, hard and tender. I lean forward to press them into his hands. But he suddenly dips his head and takes my right nipple into his mouth. He doesn’t give it a gentle lick. Instead, he closes his eyes and tugs it, abrading the turgid peak with his tongue, raking gently across the tender surface.
I palm the back of his head and call out his name.
He lifts his head and kisses me, and he reaches for the soap again. He presses it into my hands and soaps them up, and he guides my hand to wrap around his dick. “Is it too small for you, Clifford?” he asks quietly next to my ear. I run my hand up and down his shaft, teasing with my fingertips at the base of his dick, scratching lightly in the springy hair down there.
Truth is his dick isn’t small at all. “I think I can make do,” I reply.
He takes the soap from me and washes his armpits while I let my cupped hand run up and down, up and down, and up and down his length. He swears lightly under his breath and pulls my hand back from his turgid flesh. “That’s enough,” he warns. “This time, I’m going to be inside you when I come.”
“I’m still not on birth control,” I remind him. I arch a brow playfully at him. He lifts my left hand and gently kisses the engagement ring he put on my finger tonight.
“If you don’t care, I don’t,” he replies. He waits for my nod of assent before he slips a soap-covered hand between my legs and starts to strum my clit. It’s already throbbing like mad, thumping between my legs like a clock wound too tight.
“You want to move to the bed?” he asks. “Or do you want to do it here?” He kisses me, and then bends and takes my nipple into his mouth again as his fingers find and center on my clit.
“Here,” I say.